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Configuration

 

Donor Records

In order to effectively process Donations, each church should have at least three "fake" donor records. All three records can be set up as a Company on the Contacts page.
  1. Default Contact – When a Donation is imported into MinistryPlatform and a Donor account cannot be automatically matched, this record is selected temporarily until a Donor record can be assigned and/or created. Alternate names might be Default Donor or Temporary Donor.
  2. Unassigned – This record is used when a Donation cannot be assigned to a Donor. An example is a Donation by someone who uses starter checks that do not have pre-printed information on them and the signature line may not be legible. By using a specific record for these Donors, it is easier to correct them in the future.
  3. Cash – A record used to permanently assign anonymous (loose plate) Donations. 
These records can be called something slightly different to suit your church's culture. If you want to change them, a SPoC should first email Support to discuss the implications (e.g., the need to update various configuration values in Stored Procedures with the ID number of the Default Contact).

Batch Entry Types

The Batch Entry Type field exists to clarify how Donations were entered into the system. Donations can be entered in many ways including:
  1. Manual Entry.
  3. Online Giving.
  4. Legacy software import.
Additional values can be added to this list to help you distinguish the Donation source. This is often helpful in determining which Batches should be grouped together into a single Deposit in order to have a Deposit that totals the same amount that will be presented on the bank statement at the end of the month. To do so, a SPoC can go to System Lookups > Batch Entry Types.

Events & Projects

Occasionally you need to distribute a Donation to a specific Event in addition to identifying the Program to which the Donation was intended. For example, a Donation to the August Mexico Mission Trip may be distributed to the Short Term Missions Program and further categorized as belonging specifically to the August Mexico Mission trip Event/Project.
 
At any time, any Event can be added to a Donation Distribution as the Target Event for that Donation Distribution. A user with sufficient privileges can do this from the Donation Distributions page one Distribution at a time or to many selected Distributions via the Assign tool.
Specific Events can become stewardship projects by following the instructions below.
 
Configuring an Event to become a Project available to the Batch Manager Tool
There may be thousands of Events in the system. For an event to appear on the Batch Manager Toolset the On Donation Batch Tool value to Yes.
 
Configuring an Event Project to properly export to the accounting system
In the Events table, there is a field called Project Code. This field is used to export data to the accounting system when necessary. The project code is exported to Shelby v5 General Ledger when you use the One Click export report. If you leave it blank, the system may assign a default project code during export. To use this field:
  1. Create a project code in Shelby V5 General Ledger.
  2. Create or update an Event in MinistryPlatform with the project code number.
  3. Select this Event in the BMT when assigning Distributions (only Donation Distributions with this value set will include the project code when exported).
  4. OR Set this Event as the Default Target Event on the Program (all Donation Distributions with Program will include the project code when exported).
  5. Export Deposits.
  6. Run reports in Shelby v5 Financials.

See Also: Shelby Project Codes